Take a deep breath and get ready to dive into savings.
Tip #I – Many Costco members are unaware of the fantastic deals that they can snag on rental cars. Costco offers discounts on all of the major rental car players. We have had great luck with Alamo and ended with a few extra United Mileage Plus miles to boot.
Tip #II – While Costco is great for rental cars, we prefer hotels.com for deals on hotel rooms. We really like their comprehensive hotel reviews as well as their overall customer service. Of course, you should go direct to each hotels web site to see if they will offer lower prices. If you decide to book with hotels.com, be sure to sign up for their free welcome rewards program first.
Tip #III – We’re not too crazy about paying big bucks for airport food. So, if we’re in a hurry, we snag a sandwich
at Quiznos and wait to eat it until we are on the plane (where we can avail ourselves of free beverages. Well ….. at least on Southwest airlines).
Tip #IV – If you plan on checking a bag, consider packing your own soda, water bottles and snacks. This will save you from paying higher prices for these items at the hotel. Just grab some ice from the ice machine and you’re good to go.
Tip #V – Use google maps to locate restaurants and grocery store options before you depart. It’s much easier to locate cheaptastic dinning options ahead of time. This tip is even more important if you’re staying in an area where low priced dining is scarce. Of course if you book a hotel room with a refrigerator and microwave, you could do a bit of local grocery market shopping and save big.
Google also has some pretty neat travel tools. Just pull up a google map of wherever it is you want to go, search nearby for hotels, and bam, tons of results. They link to all sorts of traveler reviews too, plus street view (some places) and user-submitted images. Something else to consider in addition to hotels.com and other travel sites.